Obama to Trade Chen Guangcheng for Edward Snowden

This morning, U.S. President Barack Obama made an official call to Chinese President Xi Jinping in which he offered to trade escaped Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng for NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

Below is the transcript of the illegally-taped conversation, courtesy of the NSA.

—

[RINGING]

XI JINPING: Hello?

BARACK OBAMA: Xi, my man!

XI: Is this about Snowden?

OBAMA: (pause) Yeah.

XI: What’s your offer? We could really use some aircraft carriers.

OBAMA: Well, I thought this could be a pro bono, help-a-brother-out kind of thing.

XI: B, if I make Hong Kong extradite just because you asked me to, I’m gonna look like the Asian Tony Blair. Plus, I can’t in good conscience extradite a man who will face certain punishment in his home country.

XI: Don’t patronize me. This guy is responsible for the biggest leak in recent memory so you’re going to have to do better than some blind lawyer I used to care about. In the words your old governor, “I’ve got this thing and it’s fucking golden, and I’m not giving it up for fucking nothing.”

OBAMA: Okay, okay. I’ll throw in ten corrupt Chinese officials who are hiding out in the U.S. Any ten. Your pick.

XI: Twenty.

OBAMA: Come on, I thought we were friends! We had a good time at Sunnylands, right?

XI: (sarcastically) Oh, a great time. And where was Michelle while we were having this “great time”?

OBAMA: I told you already, Sasha and Malia had finals.

XI: Your daughters have finals so my wife has to shop Neiman Marcus alone? You realize I’m never gonna hear the end of it.